The use of mobile telephones has blossomed in the last several years as the cost of the telephones decreases, the service areas expand and the public gains a greater understanding of the versatility of the mobile telephone. This rate of growth would seem only to increase in the future as it becomes more and more accepted.
The majority of mobile telephones are permanently installed in the automobile. While the majority of components for the telephone are mounted within the automobile, the best reception and range is experienced when the telephone employs an antenna mounted external of the shell of the automobile itself. Even self-contained mobile telephones which have their own attached antenna often provide for connection to an exterior antenna for enhanced performance.
Clearly, some electrical coupling between the telephone and antenna must be used. In older designs, a flexible cable would extend from the telephone to the exterior mounted antenna. The two traditional techniques for this installation were to simply pass the cable through a partly open window, or cut an appropriately sized hole in a window or the automobile body for passage of the antenna cable. An example of a hard wired antenna is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,860, issued Oct. 6, 1981 to Iwata. The first technique provides an enhanced risk of theft or vandalism because of the partly open window. The latter increases the installation cost because of the necessity of drilling a hole and also presents the problem of filling the hole should the antenna cable be removed.
A technique has been developed for electrically coupling a telephone mounted within an automobile to an externally mounted radiator through the window of an automobile without hard wiring. One example of this technique is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,817 issued May 16, 1978 to Kirkendall. The antenna is comprised of components which are internal and external to the glass. Other examples are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,227 issued May 5, 1981 to Blaese and U.S. Pat. No. 4,474,353 issued Oct. 2, 1984 to Martino et. al. The completely electrical coupling does not require the physical existence of an antenna cable passing through the body or window of the automobile. While this technique has proven satisfactory, it is critical to mount the exterior radiator in a precise position relative to an element mounted on the inside of the window to provide the desired electrical coupling.
In the past, the exterior radiator has been mounted to the glass by an adhesive. However, the effects of weather and moisture have been found to degrade the adhesive with time, giving rise to the risk of moisture effects or the radiator becoming sufficiently detached from the window to interrupt the electrical coupling, or even presenting the problem of the radiator falling off the glass.
Therefore, a need exists to provide a better fastening technique for a mobile telephone exterior component of the antenna. Further, the performance of the typical glass mounted mobile telephone antenna is optimized when the elongate axis of the external radiator is vertical. Since the glass on which the radiator is mounted can vary in orientation at any angle relative to vertical, the exterior component is usually provided with a mechanism to adjust the angle of the radiator at installation.